Roger Marsh: Oftentimes in growing cities, older buildings must be torn down in order to make room for newer developments. The most effective way to make this happen is through a process called implosion. Demolition crews will identify and destroy key supporting points in the structure, causing a complete collapse from within. Today on Family Talk, you'll hear how that analogy equates to America's crumbling moral foundation. Our presenter today is our good friend, Pastor Robert Jeffress. He's a best-selling author, speaker, commentator, and lead minister at First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. Pastor Jeffress also runs his own TV and radio ministry called Pathway to Victory, which is broadcast all over the world. In just a moment, he'll explain why our nation's embrace of wickedness is leading to our ultimate destruction.
This is an alarming and prophetic word from Pastor Jeffress. It's unbelievable to see the themes of this message from many years ago, actually coming to fruition today. Now, don't be discouraged by this broadcast, Pastor Jeffress also offers hope and encouragement to us living in these trying times. He'll challenge all believers to fight to preserve this nation. Well, without any further delay, here's Pastor Robert Jeffress on this special edition of Family Talk
Robert Jeffress: America's collapse is inevitable and there is not one thing we're going to be able to do to stop it. I came to understand why that is true a few years ago. You'll remember that in preparation for the construction of our new campus here in downtown Dallas, we first of all had to remove 660,000 square feet of old space and four buildings to prepare the way for the new campus. So we met with the demolition people to discover what is the best way to remove these old buildings. They said the best way to do it is through an implosion process, and they sat down to explain to us exactly what they would do. They said, "We will take 200 pounds of dynamite and we'll attach it to key supports in each of these buildings. We will explode the dynamite. There'll be a pause and the dynamite will have so weakened the structure that then the law of gravity will take over and the buildings will collapse under their own weight." I said, "Well, that sounds good to me. Let's go for it."
So on a brisk fall morning in October of 2010, we stood on the building overlooking our campus. Mark Lamborn and Mayor Leppert and I were there, and we did the countdown, we pressed the button. The explosions occurred, and the explosions were followed by absolutely nothing. I had forgotten that they told me there was going to be a delay. And when nothing happened after those explosions, my first thought was, "Who am I going to fire first for this? Walter, where are you right now?" I mean, I was so embarrassed. I could see the scene being replayed endlessly on YouTube, "Pastor's implosion a dud." But what seemed like an eternity of standing there when nothing happened was actually only a few seconds, because suddenly the ground started to vibrate, the buildings began to shake. And within 30 seconds, those mighty buildings were reduced to nothing but a plume-filled debris of dust. I learned something that day about implosions: They are sudden, they are dramatic, they begin with a series of seemingly unrelated explosions followed by a delay, and then a sudden collapse.
Our Supreme Court has made three explosive decisions that have so weakened the moral and spiritual infrastructure of our nation, that our collapse is inevitable. The explosions have already occurred. The implosion is coming and we are simply right now in that in-between time. What are those three explosive decisions? They are decisions that have affected the direction of our nation more than any congressional mandate, more than any executive order from the oval office. Here are these three explosive decisions. Decision number one occurred in 1962. It was the case of Engel v. Vitale that removed prayer from the public schools. Of course, this was just the beginning of a long list of decisions. Removing Bible reading from the school the next year. A long list of judicial decisions that displayed our country's, our government's not neutrality, but it's hostility toward the Christian faith. The culminating decision was 1980 in the case of Stone v. Graham. It was a case that involved the display of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky school. Now, understand the Ten Commandments were not being taught, they were not being expanded upon.
The case was can you display the Ten Commandments in a public school. And in Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court said, "No, it is unconstitutional." And do you know what the reason was they gave for saying you cannot display the Ten Commandments? If I were to paraphrase the court's decision to you, you would think I was making it up. So let me read it to you verbatim. This is the Supreme Court: "If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps venerate and obey the Commandments. This is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment." Now, that is the Supreme Court. "We can't put the Ten Commandments up because if we do that, schoolchildren might actually read the commandments. And if they read the commandments, they might venerate the commandments. And if they venerate and respect the commandments, God forbid, they might actually obey the commandments and that's unconstitutional."
I don't think it's a coincidence that 17 years after this ruling of Stone v. Graham, in another Kentucky school, Paducah or Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky. In a Kentucky school hallway, a group of students gathered together by the lockers like they did every morning before school to read the Bible and to pray together. And while these students had their head bowed, a 14 year old who had obtained a gunman walked up on these praying students and opened fire killing three of the students, seriously wounding five of the students. It all happened in a Kentucky school where 17 years earlier, the Supreme Court said, "You cannot post the words, 'Thou shalt not kill.'" Do you realize 118 years earlier before Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court had said in its case of the Vidal v. Girard's Executors, The Supreme Court said, "Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as divine revelation in the school, its general precepts expounded, its evidences explained, and its glorious principles of morality inculcated? Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly as from the New Testament?"
"Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It's funny how the liberals leave off that last portion, "The free exercise of religion." It doesn't say, "The free exercise of religion in the home, or in the church, or in the synagogue." It says, "The free exercise of religion." Period. But then it also says, "Congress shall not establish a religion." Our forefathers understood what they were writing. They had been used to a country where there was a state-mandated Church. A Church to which everyone was forced to worship whether they believed or they didn't believe. And they came to this country, our forefathers, with the intent of having freedom of worship. Nobody would be coerced to become a part of a State church. The Congress cannot establish a religion, but what we've allowed is for the liberals to rewrite the First Amendment. It was justice Sandra Day O'Connor ... by the way, a Reagan appointee, who changed the word "establish" to the word "endorse". And now the standard is a government cannot endorse a religion, it cannot do anything that shows a preference toward Christianity. Why?
If you have a Christian prayer at your graduation, you have to have a Muslim's prayer, and you have to have a Mormon prayer. Equal treatment because after all we're America and we believe in fairness, and we don't want anybody to get their feelings hurt. Ladies and gentlemen, our framers couldn't have cared less about hurt failings. That wasn't their intent. They said, "You shall not establish a State religion." It doesn't say anything about endorsing a religion. For 160 years, our court said over and over and over again, "America is a Christian nation. America is a Christian nation. America is a Christian nation." Yes, we allow people of all religions to worship, but we give preference to the Christian faith. That was the foundation of our country.
A few months ago, I was standing in Statuary Hall at our Capitol for that event, Washington Man of Prayer, and the Marine band had just finished playing the Star-Spangled Banner. I stood up and I'm afraid I offended a few people there ... I'm not really afraid, but I think I did, anyway. I said, "As wonderful as all of this is, remember this, God is no respecter of people or nations. God does not get goosebumps when He hears the Star-Spangled Banner. God does not stand up and salute when He sees the American flag. God is no respecter of people or nations. Any nation that reverences God will be blessed by God. And any nation, including America, that rejects God will be cursed by God. 'Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.' The psalmist said."
The second explosive decision that has weakened the moral infrastructure of our country came out of Dallas, Texas. Our city of Dallas. It was the case of Roe v. Wade in 1973. The case that legalized the murder of children in the womb. And since that time, 50 million children have been butchered in their mother's womb. 50 million.
As we are preaching the sermon today here in America, all of us are horrified by the father in Georgia who allegedly allowed his 22 month old son to stay in a hot car for seven hours. The child in that sweltering heat suffocated while the father allegedly was sexting nude pictures of himself to women. We're horrified about that. "How could a father do such a thing to his child?" But as horrible as that is, it is not nearly as horrible as the 3,000 children who are butchered every day in America through the sin of abortion. Where is the outcry about that? Where's the indignation about children being murdered left and right? I'm hearing it said all the time. I hear it said now, "People don't care about these social or moral issues anymore. Nobody wants to hear about social or moral issues. All anybody cares about is the economy." Well, let's just suppose that's true. Let's think about the economic ramifications of murdering 50 million children.
Do you realize one study says if those 50 million children who were butchered in the womb, if they had been allowed to live and grow up into productive tax paying citizen, one study says it would have added anywhere from 35-$70 trillion to our gross national product since 1973. If we had not murdered our children, there wouldn't be no social security crisis, no Medicare crisis. But instead, we are $17 trillion in debt as a nation. You can't kill 20% of your population without fiscal financial repercussions. But ladies and gentlemen, the financial repercussions of abortion pale in comparison to the spiritual consequences of a nation that murders its own children. Do we really have to wonder what God is going to do to a country like America that sanctions the killing of its children? Just look back in history and see what God did to His own people, the Israelites. Many of us have been to Jerusalem and we have seen the Valley of Hinnom underneath the wall around the city of Jerusalem. In the Valley of Hinnom, the children of Israel would offer their children as burnt sacrifices to appease the pagan god, Molech.
What did God do to Israel for practicing child sacrifice? He raised up the godless Babylonians and the Assyrians to bring destruction upon God's own people. I've heard people say, "Why in the world would God allow these pagan Muslims to come and wreak havoc like they did on September 11th in our country? Why would God allow pagans to do that to a Christian nation?" All you have to do is look and see what God's done in history. He used ungodly people, the Babylonians and the Assyrians, to bring judgment upon His own people. Or in more recent times, Nazi Germany was not just taking adults, it was taking children by the train loads to the crematorium. As we look at history, do we really have to wonder what God is going to do to a nation like America that sanctions the killing of the unborn? The third decision that has weakened the spiritual moral infrastructure of our country is, again, one that came out of Texas, Lawrence and Garner v. Texas. This is the case that struck down our State's anti-sodomy laws. Now, I know conservatives are ambivalent about this decision.
Conservatives are saying, "Now, wait a minute. Do we really want the government in our bedrooms telling us with whom we can have sex, and what kind of sex we want to have, and on and on and on and on? Do we really want that?" But what was key about this decision was the reasoning behind the decision. Justice Kennedy writing for the majority talked about people's sexuality being the defining aspect of who they are, and that people ought to be free to express their sexuality in whatever form it comes in. Justice Scalia who was in the minority in that decision said afterwards, "This decision today leaves on pretty shaky grounds, state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples." That was Justice Scalia back in 2003, he was prophetic when he said those words. Listen, marriage is not a constitutional right. If marriage were a constitutional right for every American, then 15 year olds could get married. They're American citizens, they have rights. Siblings, brothers, and sisters could get married. They're American citizens, they have rights.
For 160 years, we've recognized as a country that the State has the right to limit the definition of marriage for the betterment of society. In 1885 in the Supreme Court case of Murphy v. Ramsey, the Supreme Court said, "No legislation could be more wholesome and necessary than that which sees the family as 'consisting in and springing from the union of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony.'" Why is that? We know from sociology that children don't need just a father and just a mother, they need a father and a mother. Princeton sociologist, Sarah McLanahan said, "If we were trying to design an environment in which a child could best thrive and succeed in life, it would be one in which the child was connected to both of its biological parents." Sounds like a family to me, doesn't it? That's what God ordained. And yes, it's true, that's not always possible because of death or divorce or some other extraordinary circumstance. But government ought to promote the best relationship instead of discouraging it. Remember this, whenever you counterfeit something, you cheapen the value of the real thing.
And that's the problem with legalizing homosexual marriage. We already know how this plays out. We can look at Scandinavian countries that have legalized same-sex marriage. The Hoover Institute did a study and they found over a long period of time, countries that legalize same-sex marriage, interestingly did not see that many homosexual couples get married. What they saw was the rate of heterosexual marriage dropped precipitously. Now, I want to be clear here. Homosexual marriage is not the only thing that has cheapened the value of marriage. Unbiblical divorce, adultery, premarital sex, they are all perversions of God's plan for sexuality and the family: one man with one woman for life. That is God's plan. No nation that outlaws the mention of God in the public square, that sanctions the murder of children, that destroys the most basic unit of society, the family, no nation is going to survive that. The explosions have already happened, the implosion is coming. We're simply in that in-between time right now. So what are we supposed to be doing? Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has told us exactly what we'll be doing in this in-between time.
Matthew 5:13, He said, first of all, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men." Remember in Jesus' day, salt was a preservative. There was no refrigeration. Salt had a way of preserving the meat when it came in contact with the meat. Now listen, the salt did not prevent the decay of meat, it simply delayed the decay of the meat. Now, Jesus said that's exactly what we're to be doing right now. We are a preservative in this culture. We're trying to give our nation a little longer time. We're not going to prevent the decay of our culture, but we can delay the decay, delay the collapse so that we have longer to share the gospel. In the Old Testament times, it was the king who chose the spiritual direction of the nation. If it was a godly king, God blessed the nation. If it was an ungodly king, God cursed the nation. The people didn't get to select who the king was. The king was selected.
He determined the spiritual direction of the nation. When the Apostle Paul lived, remember who was on the throne in Rome? It was Nero, the most decadent, evil emperor of all time. What did Paul say to do about leaders in 1 Timothy 2? He said we're to pray for our leaders. Every now and then some of these super spiritual saints come up to me, people who think they're more spiritual than God is. Through the years they've said things to me, "Now Pastor, we don't need to get involved in politics. We just need to pray for our leaders. Pray for our leaders. After all, Paul said, 'Just pray for our leaders.' He didn't say do anything else. Just pray." You know why Paul said, "Just pray"? because in Paul's day, that's the only thing you could do with your leaders. You could only pray for them. And by the way, it didn't always work out that great. Paul prayed for his leaders, he ended up getting beheaded for it. The reason Paul said pray is that's all you could do back then.
But as John Jay, the first Chief Justice of our Supreme Court said, God has given us, America, the privilege of choosing our leaders. We have been given through the lifeblood of our forefathers, the freedom of selecting our leaders. That means every time we go into the voting booth, every time we cast a ballot, we're either casting a vote for righteousness or for unrighteousness. And for us to sit on the sidelines and to turn over the control of this country to the godless and moral infidels who hate God, why would we do that? What kind of sick theology have some of these pinhead theologians and churches right here in this community constructed that said, "It's okay to turn over to the ungodly. We're just going to sit here and pray." No, the Bible says we're to be salt. That means we need to penetrate the culture in which we are in. And you know what? We have 50 million evangelical Christians in America today. Only half of them are registered to vote. And in the 2012 election, only the half of the half who are registered to vote actually voted.
That means 10 million voted in that election. It could have been many more. We can turn the direction of this country around overnight if God's people would rise up and vote, not Republican values, not Democrat values, but God's values. That's what we're supposed to do as a country. Now, I know I'm talking to some of you who think, "I think we better change churches, Hilda. I think we better change churches." We're not going to save the nation, but we can delay the decay. The reason we're to push back and delay the decay is so that we can do the second thing God has called us to do. Jesus said in Matthew 5:14, not only are you the salt of the earth, He said you are to be the light of the world. Verse 14, "You are the light of the world, a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden."
Ladies and gentlemen, God has not called us to save America. He has called us to save Americans from the coming judgment of God by introducing them to faith in Jesus Christ. That's why we're pushing back, that's why we're delaying the decay, so that we can share the hope of the gospel.
Roger Marsh: A powerful reminder to Christians to continue to be salt and light in this decaying and lost society. You've been listening to a stirring message from pastor Robert Jeffress today on Family Talk. Learn more about his ministry, his church, or his many popular books when you go to drjamesdobson.org. On our broadcast page, you'll see links for all of those resources and also information about how to request a CD of this presentation. You'll find all that by visiting drjamesdobson.org. That's D-R jamesdobson.org. Finally, did you know that the James Dobson Family Institute is entirely listener-supported? Your generous tax deductible financial contributions allow our ministry to continue to fight for the institution of the family. For more information on how you can partner with us in this cause, go to drjamesdobson.org. That's D-R jamesdobson.org. Or call (877) 732-6825. That's (877) 732-6825. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Be sure to join us again next time for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks for listening.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.